Heat oven to 350 degrees. Bring milk, cream, butter,salt, and vanilla sticks to a boil. (This can be done in the microwave.) Remove vanilla sticks from the mixture. In a separate bowl, mix eggs and sugar together. Add in the simmering milk mixture to the egg and sugar mixture and pass through a sieve. Cut the bread into thin slices. Arrange bread in a buttered oven-proof dish in two layers. Put soaked raisins between the bread layers and cover the first layer with some of the milk mixture, reserving more for the top layer. Arrange top layer of bread. Cover top layer in milk mixture. Add sugar and cinnamon. Place the dish in a roasting pan filled about 1/3 full with water to retain moisture and prevent from burning. Bake for 45-50 minutes or until golden brown and knife inserted in center comes out clean.

Serve with vanilla sauce

Vanilla Sauce

Ingredients:

2 cups milk

4 egg yolks

dash of vanilla or piece of vanilla bean

1/2 cup sugar

3 1/3 tablespoons(1 ounce) cornstarch

Instructions for vanilla sauce:

Heat 1 3/4 cups milk to boiling (This can be done in the microwave). If using vanilla bean, split it and heat with the milk. In a separate bowl, mix the remaining milk with egg yolks, sugar, and cornstarch until smooth. Add hot milk mixture to egg mixture, whisk over heat until thickened. If using liquid vanilla, add it in now. Serve over bread pudding

notes: I could not find any vanilla sticks for bread pudding so just used vanilla bean. I also tried vanilla extract and it does not turn out quite as good.

I highly recommend using a 7 x 11 pyrex pan to bake the bread pudding in. It's just the right size to fit into most roasting pans.

The recipe called for 1 ounce cornstartch which is 3 1/2 tablespoons. I had to add a lot more milk to have a good consistency (like pudding) so you might want to lesson the amount. I found 2 tablespoons of cornstarch made a better sauce